Stiff: A Book Review

-The maximum speed at which a human being has a respectable shot at surviving feet-first (the safest position) is 70mph. Terminal velocity of a falling body is 120mph and can be reached in 500 feet.
-Without temperature extremes, bodies lose about 1.5 degrees Fahenheit per hour until ambient temperature.
-Necrophilia was not a crime in any state in the US until 1965. To date, only 16 states have enacted necrophilia laws.

These are just a handful of tidbits I learned from "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach.

It was recommended to me by a staffer in a random bookstore in this weekend. One of those little tags on the shelf with handwriting on it got me to pick it up and I talked myself into walking to the register with it for the sake of research for any future mystery novel I might write.

The book starts off with 'fun' fact chapters telling stories of what happens to the human cadavers donated to science, how anatomists of the 1700s and 1800s got their cadavers to dissect (from using executed criminals to using deceased loved ones and finally paid body snatchers pilfering the freshly dead from the graveyards). Later chapters deal with heavier topics such as the debate whether the soul resides in the brain or the heart, medicinal cannibalism, and future body disposal techniques (composting).

This is not a book for the squeamish. I'm a fan of the CSI TV show (the Las Vegas version), but I'm wary of the things I learn there because I've seen plenty of TV 'science'. The author put in a CSI moment addressing how body temperature, rigor mortis and yes, bugs and larvae, could be used to help determine time of death.

I was fascinated by the story of a Dr. Duncan Macdougall, who sought to determine if the soul had substance or more measureably, weight. In 1907, he placed six of his dying patients in beds on scales sensitive to two-tenths of an ounce. He found that upon each patients' expiration, the scales lost three-fourths of an ounce.

Throughout the book, the author uses healthy doses of both humor and respect to explore her subject matter. She also heavily advocated for organ donation, lauding as heroes the cadavers who bequeathed their life-saving organs after death. Although I started reading the book from a sense of curiosity and shock factor, her respectful treatment got me accustomed enough to the topic of human bodies after death that I could ponder the questions she posed without my brain trying to shy away so quickly. I don't think anyone really wants to ponder death, let alone post-mortem logistics, but the book made it a fascinating topic to spend an afternoon with. Yeah, morbid, I know.